4 Books to Read This March

How to Murder Your Life

If you're captivated by the irresistible trio of beauty, success, and addiction, surrender to Cat Marnell's How to Murder Your Life (Simon & Schuster). The xoJane columnist dishes on her previous wild-child ways, from shoplifting to party hopping to spiritual groveling, to finding a measure of humor and grace.

The Arrangement

If you've been wondering what an experiment in open marriage might be like, try Sarah Dunn's deliciously inventive novel The Arrangement (Little, Brown), in which Lucy and Owen trade their frenetic Manhattan marital life for an upstate-country open marriage, with refreshing results.

The World to Come

If you're attracted to historical storytelling powered by masterful, exact voices, Jim Shepard's The World to Come (Knopf) will awe and inspire. In "The Ocean of Air," an eighteenth-century French boy observes "the marvels of the heavens, that immense space where the vital fluid to which we give the name of air flows in all of its diffusion and mobility," leading to the creation of the first manned air balloon.

Lucky You

If your fever dream of going off-grid remains unfulfilled, sublimate with Erika Carter's chillingly adroit debut novel, Lucky You (Counterpoint), about three twentysomethings who, bored with life in a college town, move to the no-paced Ozarks—where life lessons in sexual tension, isolation, and personal foibles shift into fast-forward.